


One Leg at a Time

by Mallory Klohn (malloryklohn)



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-24
Updated: 2008-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-02 03:48:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/malloryklohn/pseuds/Mallory%20Klohn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John and Rodney have a difference of opinion as to who of the two of them is the true King Prude of Petticoats Mountain.  You might think this dispute leads to a lot of outre sexual exploits, but mostly they just argue a bunch.  Mostly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Leg at a Time

John Sheppard has learned a lot of things in his relatively short life, but there's only one thing he really _knows_, and that is that there are two kinds of people in this world: people who wear pants because they want to, and people who wear pants because they have to.

He hasn't made a study of who's who when it comes to this, but modesty aside, he's got a pretty good handle on it. Elizabeth definitely wears pants in her free time. So does Zelenka. Teyla; Miko; Beckett; Bates.

Cadman runs around starkers whenever she can--although John only knows this because Rodney told him so, and Rodney is, to say the least, an unreliable witness. (Nudity aside, though, there are no pants there. No way.) Likewise does Kavanagh go without, behind closed doors. Dr. Brown; Dr. Parrish; Major Lorne.

(Ronon probably keeps his pants on even when he's having sex, although whether this stems from kink or practicality is something John's too wise to contemplate much.)

John himself is a pants person. He might not wear his _nicest_ pants, or his most appropriate pants--there was a Hammer Time period of his life that he prays he'll forget someday--but like as not, no matter the day or time or circumstance, if you surprise him, you may find him without a shirt, but he will absolutely and without exception be wearing pants.

He thought this was a trait that he and Rodney shared, although his reasons and Rodney's are not the same.

Once, when Rodney was exposed to lethal gas, he took a moment to consider his options when faced with the necessity of showering in public. Even on the hottest day of the year, he won't consider shorts. He's lived for years in a city surrounded on all sides by ocean, but he has never once gone for a swim.

Rodney and pants. They go together like a wink and a smile.

Except, apparently, when they don't.

 

*** *** ***

 

No matter what Rodney says about him, John considers himself to be reasonably intelligent. He did well in school, he did well in the Air Force till he did a little too well for himself and not at all well for his CO. He can fix a toaster without looking up the instructions; he gets Bergman films (though he doesn't like them); he's good at math.

And yet, standing in the control room, physically assaulted by blaring klaxons and flashing lights, he might be looking for a bucket to hold his coins if not for the fact that he is also surrounded by half a dozen women and men who all look like they're about to piss themselves while having heart attacks.

"I think I'll just go find Rodney," he tells them, as much for their benefit as for his own.

As far as Rodney is concerned, nobody is allowed to freak out about anything until he's done it first. However they're all about to die, they'll all die happier if Rodney hears it from someone who _isn't_ clutching a rosary and sobbing.

Unfortunately, John only makes it about halfway down the stairs when Rodney pelts around the corner and starts dashing up them, two at a time.

"Hey, buddy," John tries.

"Move," says Rodney, then shoves past him before he can comply.

Despite the gravity of the situation, all action in the control room ceases when Rodney crosses the threshold. The terror in the room is even more palpable than it was a moment ago. "Well?" he demands. "What did you do?"

Nobody speaks, which can only lead to further Rodney-related heartbreak. But John's armed, so he decides to pitch in. "I don't think they did anything, McKay."

Rodney rounds on him. "How could you possibly know that? I don't care what they told you at DeVry, Colonel: logging seven hundred and fifty hours playing Minesweeper doesn't make you an IT professional, much less an engineer who understands the Lantean system well enough to fuck it up, never mind fix it, and what the _hell_ are you staring at?"

Well.

Now that he's had a second to think about it, John is staring at Rodney.

He's barefoot--strange enough--but all he's wearing is a pair of light blue cotton boxer shorts and a black t-shirt celebrating some band called Prism.

It's two o'clock in the afternoon, for fuck's sake.

"Where were you?" John asks him. It comes out a lot more plaintive than he'd have liked.

"In my quarters, reading Ayn Rand," says Rodney, looking baffled. "You know Angelina Jolie's going to star in _Atlas Shrugged_?"

John just shakes his head and waves vaguely at the control panels. "Are we all gonna die or not?"

But John still has that _look_ on his face, somewhere between shock and horror--he can _feel_ it--and for the moment at least, this is more meaningful to Rodney than the sound of Sergeant Anderson's moist version of "I Never Sang For My Father."

Rodney stays exactly where he is, chin tilted upward, eyes narrowed, and says "_What_?" again, making it clear that he will let at least ten people die before he gives up on this, and even then he won't give up on it forever.

John doesn't mean to look him up and down, but he can't help it. Rodney's wearing something else: a boner. There it is, tenting his boxers, plain as day, and John hates himself for not noticing it immediately, because now he has no way of knowing whether Rodney was already packing wood when he showed up or it's his natural reaction to life-threatening disaster.

"Oh, of _course_," says Rodney, rolling his eyes. "Never mind the imminent threat of horrible, prolonged, gory death--Dr. McKay's not wearing _pants_!"

John sighs. "McKay..."

"Just out of curiosity, Colonel, how did you learn this critical rule of societal interaction? _The Emily Post Worst-Case Scenario Survival Guide_?"

"Well," John stalls. Then it comes to him. "What if there was an invasion?" he says triumphantly, pointing at Rodney. "You can't defend the city with no pants on."

Rodney parks his hands on his hips and gapes at John. "Why the hell not?"

"_Because_," he says, and forces himself not to add _It's embarrassing._

Rodney hears it anyway.

"Oh my _god_," he says, wide-eyed. "You're one of those people who sleep in their clothes in case there's a fire in their building. Who don't use dressing rooms because they're paranoid about security cameras. Who wear their swimming trunks under their clothes when they go to the beach!"

"McKay..."

It's useless. He's got Rodney started. Rodney's _grinning_, God help them all.

"Go ahead and storm the city," he says gleefully. "Rape and plunder to your heart's content, burn it down and salt the ocean, use my toothbrush and sell me into slavery, but for the love of God, _let me put my pants on first_."

John is chagrined.

He likes to think he can take whatever name-calling Rodney dishes out. He was Major Dickweed for six weeks after he broke Rodney's favorite coffee cup (a frilly white mug with thin gold trim which was decorated with huge, elaborate purple flowers and, inexplicably, had ANGELA printed along the top in black in an Olde English font.) He was Colonel Sanders for a month after he got a little too excited over real chicken in the mess one lucky day.

He's been Vidal Sassoon, Hank Williams Jr. Jr., Flirty McHorndog and Cock Block Larry--among many, many others--and maybe he hasn't shouldered this burden with a smile on his face, but he's shouldered it, somehow.

And yet, in spite of all this, he can't take Rodney calling him a prude.

Blessedly, he's saved from having to say so; before the conversation can go any further, Captain Morgan yells "Christ on a bike!" and falls out of her chair.

"Move!" Rodney yells, booting her in the ass till she's scuttled away from the work station. "Move! _Move_, before I have you brought up on charges of attempted genocide."

And John knows better than to say anything now. He's had his reprieve. Rodney won't forget what they were talking about, but if this crisis is as bad as it looks, it could be days--weeks, even--before he has time to needle John again, and by then, no doubt, John will have said or done something more immediately humiliating.

But look at Captain Morgan there, still huddled on the floor, shell-shocked and obviously wondering if she can find a lawyer in the Ancient Yellow Pages. Nothing could make her a bigger scapegoat now, except maybe a red shirt.

Everyone knows that if there's a grenade to be leapt upon, John Sheppard asks "How far?" He can't throw all that away now just because Rodney has a taste for human blood.

"I think you might be overreacting just a little bit," John says, in a confidential sort of tone.

Rodney doesn't bother turning around to glare at him. "Go clutch your pearls somewhere else, Clarabelle," he says, still banging away at Morgan's keyboard. "You're just wasting my air up here."

John wants to say something about this, something brief and hard and unmistakable, but they've all got bigger fish to fry right now, and besides, in spite of everything? The pants-peeing scientists are laughing at John.

 

*** *** ***

 

"So..." says Heightmeyer. "Dr. McKay was undressed?"

"Well, not _completely_," says John. "He was wearing a shirt. But he was in his underwear. _Boxers_," he adds, giving her a searching look. Willing her to understand.

She doesn't get it. "His choice of undergarment was significant to you."

"Look." John scowls down at his knees and rubs the back of his neck viciously. He can't come right out and ask her how much she knows about men's underwear, but there has to be _some_ way to get his point across "He was _naked_ under there. It was all just... swinging in the breeze."

Her eyebrows shoot up at this. "You saw Dr. McKay's..."

"No! _God_ no. But I _could_ have."

He gives her another searching look, but it's useless. She's the kind of shrink who makes a point of being as obtuse as possible so you have to do all the talking yourself. Now she taps her fancy gold pen against her lower lip and says, thoughtfully, "And Dr. McKay was unperturbed by this."

"Well... it was kind of a life or death situation," John allows.

"Did anyone else seem concerned about his appearance?"

"No," he says, annoyed. "There wasn't time for that. Mostly everybody was just, you know, making peace with their gods."

"Yet in spite of the circumstances, _you_ objected." Heightmeyer sips her coffee, watching John over the rim of her mug.

"He was sitting around his quarters in his underwear in the middle of the afternoon," John complains, "and he wasn't even watching porn."

"He told you so?"

"This is _Rodney_ we're talking about," John points out, and Heightmeyer smiles faintly. "If he'd been watching porn when he got the call, everyone in the control room would've known about it."

He wouldn't mean to tell _everyone_, but it'd come out somehow. John's met _toddlers_ with more sophisticated internal editors.

Anyway, perhaps John's perception of his friend has been shaken by the revelation that Rodney is happily pantsless in his spare time, but he still knows--_knows_ that Rodney wouldn't look at porn in the middle of the day.

It's not that he's the kind of person who thinks you should only have sex after dark, in bed, with the lights off. Far from it--not that John wants to think about all the places and ways that Rodney McKay is willing to engage in sexual congress. It's that Rodney's the kind of person who hasn't had a warm cup of coffee since 1989 except for when he's been waiting to be executed in some offworld prison.

He can't do anything on Atlantis without being interrupted within an inch of his life. He'll make you cry for taking him away from his coffee; he'll make your _grandmother_ cry for taking him away from a hot meal. If you took him away from a jerk-off session...

It is of course at this moment that John remembers about Rodney's boner.

"John..?"

"Look, I'm not some weirdo who goes around thinking about guys in their underwear, all right? I'm not an underwear _hobbyist_."

"There's nothing weird about that, John," she says gently.

John rolls his eyes. "That's not what I meant. I've got no problems there, believe me. All I'm saying is, this isn't like that. It's..." John flexes his hands while he puts his words together. "Put it this way, Doc: _you_ think about Rodney's junk swinging around in the control room while the lives of everyone in the city are in his hands--think about it for _five seconds_\--and then try to tell me it hasn't ruined your day."

"John--"

"You can start now," he says, squinting at his chronometer.

Five... four… three... two... one. When he looks up at Heightmeyer again, try though she might to maintain the impassive expression she favors, John sees a hint of darkness in her eyes that wasn't there before.

"Time's up," he says cheerfully. "So... See you again next week?"

 

*** *** ***

 

John's sitting alone in the mess hall later that same evening, enjoying a slice of lemon meringue pie and a four-month-old issue of _Heavy Metal_ when Rodney comes stomping up to him and kicks him in the shin, hard.

Before he can say "McKay, what the hell?" Rodney yells "You _bastard_!" Then he flings himself down in a seat opposite John and digs into a slab of carrot cake.

"Do you realize that you've placed my life in jeopardy _eighty-nine_ times since we met?" Rodney says. His mouth is full. It's not pretty. "And I'm not talking about the kind of jeopardy where I might die of humiliation or you committed some ludicrous intergalactic faux pas that resulted in all of us running for our lives. I'm talking you, me, direct jeopardy due to your being a _bastard_."

John sighs and rubs his shin. "You might find this hard to believe, McKay, I have no fucking idea what you're talking about."

"Your _pants_, Sheppard," he says impatiently. "I'm talking about your _pants_."

With a filthy grin, John says, "If I had a nickel for every time someone said my pants jeopardized their lives..."

But Rodney will not be distracted from his outrage.

"You were shocked that I came to the control room without my pants on because you wouldn't have done it! _What if there was an invasion?_ That's what you said. We could be under attack by the Wraith and the Goa'uld and the Ori and the Genii and the Scientologists and you'd leave me to be _murdered to death_ if you had to choose between saving me in your underpants or not saving me at all."

"People need pants, McKay," John says helplessly. "You can't tell me you'd come running to my rescue bare-assed naked if you didn't have to."

Rodney looks more thoroughly disgusted with John than he did even when John came back from P27-2JJ with some kind of space VD and Beckett made everyone watch a sex education movie produced by the SGC called _Far From Home (Don't Let This Happen to You!)_

"Rest assured, Colonel," he says sourly, "if I had to choose between saving your life naked and letting you die while I set aside the time to _tie my shoes_, the Wraith would be learning all kinds of intriguing new things about human physiology."

At the next table, Zelenka clears his throat loudly.

"Oh my god," says Rodney, turning to glare at him. "What do _you_ want?"

"I would not go so far as to call you a liar, Rodney," Zelenka says politely, "but... _intriguing_?"

"_You've_ seen me naked," Rodney retorts. "Can you honestly say that you weren't intrigued?"

"I feared for my life," says Zelenka. "HAZMAT room," he adds, for John's benefit.

"Well, that's hardly a basis for a fair assessment," Rodney scoffs. "Not that I'd give _you_ another look at the goods, with priorities like those."

It's on the tip of John's tongue to say that _he's_ seen "the goods," straining against the thin cotton of Rodney's shorts. Rodney's cock is long and thick. (He couldn't make out the shape of Rodney's balls--and he didn't let himself look long enough to really try, in any case--but Rodney being Rodney, they're probably big as well.) Rodney has surprisingly muscular, hairy legs, and knobby knees.

John noticed all of this in the midst of a crisis situation, which is, apparently, more than can be said about Zelenka. But this is far, far more than John would like to be able to say about himself, and if Rodney asked him if he was intrigued, the only way out of the conversation would be to treat Rodney to a forced forkful of John's deadly pie.

"It might help also if I were a homosexual," Zelenka says kindly, but the damage is already done.

"It wouldn't help _me_," says Rodney. "You've got creepy stalker written all over you. Been there, done that, signed the restraining order."

"Is true," Zelenka tells John. "In Russia, was like Beatlemania wherever Rodney went. Men, women, reindeer..."

"Intriguing," Rodney says happily. This time the forkful of carrot cake he crams into his mouth is so enormous that he smears cream cheese frosting on the corner of his mouth.

John focuses on crushing the crisp brown surface of his meringue. "I don't remember seeing reindeer in Russia."

"Don't try to change the subject," he says, menacing John with his fork.

"Rodney," he sighs, "I don't know what the subject _is_."

"The subject, Sheppard, is that you would rather see me eviscerated and the forces of evil bathing in my blood and entrails than let anybody outside of the laundry staff know that you still have your Spider-Man Underoos."

"They were _Aquaman_ Underoos, and _I do not_."

"That's not the point!" Rodney blinks. "Although... _Aquaman_? Seriously?"

John glares at him. "Listen, pal, I've been naked in public more times than you've had hot dinners."

"Ha! Name _one_. And anytime you were drunk or in college or drunk in college is automatically disqualified."

John is stymied. He's practically a virgin, with those kinds of limitations. And he gets the uncomfortable feeling that Rodney is compiling a mental list of his own adventures in public nudity--a disturbingly long, disturbingly _detailed_ list--while John struggles to come up with #1.

This goes against the laws of god and man.

"I streaked at the Homecoming parade when I was seventeen," he tries.

"No you didn't," Rodney says sadly, shaking his head.

It's true: he didn't.

He narrows his eyes and tries again. "I mooned my boss at Dairy Queen on my last day before I joined the Air Force."

"_No_, you _didn't_," says Rodney, even more sadly.

And Rodney is right again. It's time to get serious.

"Fine," John snarls. "_Fine_."

Rodney leans way, way forward on the table, setting his elbows down on it and his chin in his hands. The joy in his smile and the glint in his eyes say that he'll wait patiently for whatever giant pile of horseshit John is about to dish out, and then he'll haul out his shovel.

John might be able to lie--_might_\--but if he fails, he might as well feed himself to the Wraith and call it a day.

So instead, he closes his eyes, takes a deep, grounding breath, and tells the story that will save bacon in this conversation... and damn his soul.

"I could be kind of a dick sometimes, when I was younger," he begins roughly.

"When you were _younger_?"

John opens his eyes to glare at Rodney. "Do you want to hear this, or not?"

"Not if I've already heard it, no. Let me guess," Rodney says scornfully, crossing his arms over his chest. "You screwed somebody over--your girlfriend, no doubt--and she paid you back by stealing your clothes while you were skinny-dipping with her mom at Camp Crystal Lake."

John sighs. "You're not far off."

"Oh, my heart," Rodney says, clutching his chest. "It's too weak for this terrible shock."

It was John's boyfriend, actually. (Kyle _thought_ he was John's boyfriend, anyway. John's learned since then that you can't avoid talking about _everything_, not if you don't want to live the kind of life in which every story begins with "So then I woke up in the back of a squad car.")

He doesn't feel like outing himself in the mess hall, anyway--Zelenka's not the only person who's sitting nearby--so he sticks to the more pertinent facts of the story.

"Slipped me a mickey at a roadhouse outside of Bible Grove."

Rodney looks pained. "_Bible Grove_?"

"We were in Missouri," John shrugs. "What do you want? Anyway, I woke up at five the next morning, naked as a jaybird, flat on my back on top of the pool table in the back room. When I went for a piss I found ASSHOLE written on my chest in blue chalk. In mirror writing."

"How could you even read it?" Rodney demands. "You're a _Sasquatch_."

"Let's just say it was done in anger and leave it at that, all right?"

Kyle left an ASSHOLE-shaped welt on John's skin that lasted for nine days. Even now, years and years later, sometimes when John sees himself naked, he thanks his lucky stars that it didn't scar.

"There was nothing I could wear in this place. I mean, _nothing_. Not even a bar rag. I had to walk home wearing a greasy cardboard box that said FROZEN MEAT in three languages." He pauses for effect. "In the snow."

For an endless, itchy moment, Rodney just looks at John thoughtfully, head cocked, eyes narrowed, mouth tight, clearly searching for the holes in John's story. There's only the one, though, and John knows that shows on his face as plainly as his remembered humiliation showed in his voice while he told the story.

Rodney might've guessed what John's hiding, for all John knows, but right now he doesn't care if Rodney thinks he's gay or straight, an adult baby, into bestiality and scatplay; Rodney can accuse him of absolutely any sexual proclivity that his huge, twisted brain can dream up, and John won't mind at all--as long as he for Christ's sake lets go of the idea that John is the prude in their friendship.

"Why did barman let you stay?" Zelenka asks.

"She _was_ the bartender, you moron," says Rodney, glaring at him. "Hence the utter lack of aprons and the like. The real question is, why didn't the Colonel steal a bottle of Wild Turkey on his way out?"

"I kinda had my hands full at the time."

"Mm, I suppose. FROZEN MEAT," he says, smiling in a way that is not at all sympathetic to John and very much admiring of his ex.

"This was only box on hand?" Zelenka asks, and now John and Rodney _both_ glare at him. The last thing John needs is for Rodney to turn into Perry Mason over this. Fortunately, though, for once, Rodney is on his side.

"Of course not, Radek," says Rodney. "There was a plain black box that was folded into the shape of pants, too, but Sheppard thought, hell, why not give the EMTs a laugh while they're removing his dead extremities?"

"Sarcasm does not become you," Zelenka says bitterly, turning away.

"Well?" John demands when Rodney's attention is fully his again.

"Well," Rodney says after a moment. "You weren't publicly naked on _purpose_, were you?"

John fights the impulse to stamp his foot like a three-year old. He fights it hard. "You didn't say it had to be intentional," he says, finally, but he can't quite keep the threat of violence out of his voice.

Rodney raises his hands in mock surrender. "You're right, you're right. I should've been more specific. Don't get your panties in a bunch."

"All right," says John, mollified. "And I don't wear panties," he adds, pointing at Rodney. "Don't go saying I wear panties."

"Please," says Rodney. "You're the _last_ person I'd accuse of wearing panties."

John doesn't have the strength to ask Rodney what the hell that's supposed to mean. He doesn't need it, anyway. He knows.

"Go away now," John says wearily. "_Please_."

"Okay." Rodney crams the rest of the carrot cake into his mouth and gets to his feet. "Oh, by the way? This--" he says, snatching up John's _Heavy Metal_ and waving it in his face, "is completely disgusting. It's sexist, it's inane, and-and-and--scientifically unsound." He scowls darkly at the cover, and then at John. "Can I borrow it?"

John waves him off. At this point he'd give his left nut to get Rodney out of his sight. He can certainly part with his magazine. Rodney hums happily, tucks the magazine under his arm, and stomps off. John watches him go; watches him stop halfway to the door; turn around; head back to John's table.

He braces himself for another round of whatever the hell, but instead of sitting down, or saying anything, Rodney plunks something down on the table in front of John, smiles crookedly, and stomps away again.

John looks down, and his mouth drops open in shock; it's the sugar carrot from the top of Rodney's cake.

He's seen Rodney go toe to toe with people over the sugar roses on their own birthday cakes. ("Now of all times you should realize that you're not getting any younger. Look at those candles. That is a load-bearing cake! The _last_ thing you need is more sugar, but it's too late for me, so do us both a favor and just _give it_.")

The unnaturally green tip of the carrot is first to go. It's revoltingly sweet, as John knew it would be; it really is nothing but sugar and food coloring, grainy, with a chemical aftertaste. But it's like a time machine, this carrot. It takes him back to the days when he resorted to petty theft to get his hands on something sweet because his parents had all kinds of insane, arcane rules about it.

John keeps working his way through the carrot, determinedly focusing on the way its sweetness coats his mouth and tongue and not on what Rodney would say if he knew that John is eating it slowly--_savoring it_, really, as the gift that it is.

Zelenka catches John smiling over the carrot before John catches himself.

John creates a diversion. "Beatlemania?"

Zelenka shakes his head, frowning darkly. "I know it only as Rodney tells it."

"He's a terrible liar."

"Exactly," he says. Then he grins at John. "I believe him, though, about reindeer. When he tells me this, he looks--disturbed. And he will not continue."

John plants his feet on the floor and scoots his chair over to Zelenka's table. "So. What else can you tell me?"

 

*** *** ***

 

"Today I'd like to revisit something we discussed last session," says Heightmeyer.

John eyes her warily. "What?"

"Your awareness of Dr. McKay's state of undress."

"Aw, jeez..."

"You've been romantically involved with men before."

"I don't know about _romantic_."

She ignores him. "Have you considered the possibility that you're attracted to Dr. McKay?"

"No. _No_. Absolutely not."

"Why not?"

John rolls his eyes. "Saying _Why not date Rodney?_ is like saying _Why not adopt a crack baby?_ It's something you do to be nice, not because you think you'd like it."

"You enjoy a close friendship with Dr. McKay, don't you?"

"It's not the same thing."

"You spend a lot of time together, even when you're off duty."

"It's not the same _thing_. Look, he's needy and emotional, already, every damn day. You throw in love and sex and all that stuff and it's--he'd--he'd be a fulltime job."

He would. He'd be the kind of fulltime job you take on top of your _other_ fulltime job because you have eight kids and they all need braces. The kind that fucks up some part of your body so you can't work anymore, and then your wife has to turn tricks so you can make the lot fees for your trailer, and then your kids are in and out of foster care because you can never make your mind up between booze and cereal, and then your parents sue you for custody, and then you all duke it out on _The Maury Show_...

Maybe John has considered his attraction to Rodney, but he hasn't _considered_ it. Rodney has a cool mind, nice eyes, a hot mouth and a big cock, but none of that matters. It doesn't. It's not worth a damn held up against everything else Rodney's got. It's fine and dandy for your _friend_ to be a pain in the ass, but John doesn't have the energy for messy relationships. Not anymore.

If he's brought this up with Heightmeyer for any reason, it's because he's successfully squelched his attraction to Rodney, for years, and he resents Rodney for forcing him--however inadvertently--to pay him some attention.

Heightmeyer sips her coffee and gives John a thoughtful look. "Perhaps it's just as well that you feel this way."

"Thank you," says John, nodding decisively. "I think it is."

She nods too, as if in agreement, but then she says, "Has Dr. McKay ever given any indication that he's attracted to you?"

John frowns. Rodney _likes_ John more than he likes anybody else they know, but... John's seen what Rodney's like when he's really _into somebody_. He goes from genius to Rain Man in seven seconds. It's pathetic. Hilarious, but pathetic.

All John really has to go on at this point is the gift of the sugar carrot, and he'll be goddamned if he's going to mention that.

"I guess not," he says finally.

"Has he ever given any indication that he's attracted to men?"

"Women, men, reindeer..."

"I'm sorry..?"

"So am I," John sighs.

 

*** *** ***

 

He does everything he can not to brood about Rodney over the next several days. Mostly this comes down to keeping so busy during the day that he's beyond exhausted by the time he turns in at night. He volunteers for patrol duty, he volunteers to pitch in with more of the scientists, he volunteers to help out with the Athosians' potato harvest on the mainland...

The thing of it is, if Rodney were attracted to men, he'd be _crazy_ about John. John's good-looking, he knows, smart, funny, charming, he's geeky enough to hold his own in conversation with Rodney but not so much so that he's uncomfortably familiar. John is a _catch_, for just about anyone. But he can't say this to anyone without sounding like an asshole.

(Rodney would say it out loud, if their positions were reversed, but Rodney once copped to having asked six separate women about their pregnancies only to discover that they were just kind of fat. John's made the same mistake, but only once.)

But... maybe Rodney _wouldn't_ be crazy about John. Maybe Rodney would like intellectuals, or scene queens. Maybe Rodney would like _bears_. Oh, Christ: huge, hairy, borderline retarded bears, jealous and possessive and clinically paranoid. It would be the perfect complement to Rodney's neediness. He might not even mind about the retardation--in the short term, anyway.

It's completely insane and John knows it: he doesn't want Rodney for himself--even now he's sure about this--but it bugs the shit out of him to think Rodney doesn't want him.

 

*** *** ***

 

"Oh my _god_," says Rodney when they step out of the gate. He sounds as appalled as he did the day it came to light that John didn't know the difference between chocolate coating and chocolate-_flavoured_ coating. "We're in _Bedrock_."

"Yabba dabba doo," says John, grinning.

On P3Y-U89, the gate is at the heart of a large village. It's more primitive than Bedrock, actually; the houses tend to be made from mud rather than stone, and there's no sign of a car, anywhere.

The activity from the gate has drawn quite a bit of attention. Already a number of Bedrock's inhabitants are headed the team's way, having been drawn out of their homes or away from their work.

They have soap on Bedrock, John senses from the lack of personal filth on display, and dual eyebrows. They don't have haircuts, though; he hasn't seen this many dreadlocks in one place since he attended Lollapalooza 1998. They dress in animal skins and bones and they carry clubs and spears.

John's a little worried about the clubs and spears.

"I'm thinking maybe we should just tell them we dialed the wrong number and get the hell out of here," he says in a low voice.

"_I'm_ thinking you need corrective lenses," Rodney says, and points at the cluster of huts to their left. Next to the door of each and every hut, like a fake rock for hiding your spare key, is a ZPM. It's the same situation with the huts on the right, and, presumably, every hut in the village.

"Okay," John says happily. "So we make nice with the torch-bearing mob, and then we try and find us a landlord. If we let Teyla do the talking, maybe he'll give us a break on the damage deposit."

"What constitutes damage in a slum?" Rodney asks, wrinkling his nose as half the ceiling sloughs off a hut just ahead of them. "Paint and new carpet?"

"Shut your piehole, McKay," John murmurs. Most of the villagers within shouting distance, now, and maybe they don't look like grammar and punctuation are priorities with them, but you never can tell. "I thought this time we might try mixing it up a little, maybe insult our new friends _after_ we have a deal."

"Under any other circumstances I'd be telling you how I feel about kissing these of all possible asses, but..." he waves his arm at the huts again and grins like a kid. "It's like Candyland."

John looks him askance. "Board games are different in Canada, aren't they?"

When they try to step down from the gate, they're kept back by the villagers. Nobody threatens them with any sort of harm, or even looks angry, particularly, but it's clear by the press of bodies before them that they're not going anywhere.

"No, no, see," says John when a burly woman in leather rags shoulders him back to where he was standing. "We come in peace. We just want to be friends. Everybody likes friends, right?"

"You must wait for Kirok," she says gruffly.

"Kirok," John repeats slowly. "Now, is that a person, or an event of some kind..?"

"_Kirok is a person_," says Rodney, and now he looks even more appalled than he did over the chocolate-flavoured incident. "Don't you know _anything_?"

John frowns at him.

"_Kirok_," says Rodney, as if saying it louder will jog John's memory. "_Star Trek_, original series, 'The Paradise Syndrome'? Kirk is stranded alone on a Native American planet and he has amnesia? _I am Kirok!_" He gapes at John, who shakes his head helplessly. "No? Seriously?"

"These folks don't look like Trekkies to me, Rodney." They look like _Trek_ extras, if anything, although the set designers for _Star Trek_ only would've built one mud hut and then filmed it from a bunch of different angles. "Kirok is probably sunset."

"Dinner," Ronon suggests.

"Or dinner," says John, pointing at him. "Teyla?"

"I'm afraid I must agree with Dr. McKay, John," she says. "A man approaches who appears to be the leader of these people."

John follows her gaze and sees... the man of what John supposes are Rodney's theoretically homoerotic dreams.

He's the cover of a romance novel, all by himself. A head taller than Ronon, and beefier, as well, all flowing blond hair and wild dark eyes, chiseled features, bulging, bronzed, oiled muscles, animal skins...

Teyla's marked him out as the leader because he's the only person they've seen so far who's wearing a headdress. It's made of most of a tiger-like animal, from the looks; the skull sits atop his head like a hat, its long, wicked, gleaming fangs set just above his eyebrows, its pelt hanging down his back like a cape. It's not very expertly cleaned.

Despite the peaceful behavior of the villagers, John can't help feeling a wee bit apprehensive about this guy. But then he was apprehensive about Ronon at first, and sure, Ronon knows how to use nothing but a flimsy paper napkin to kill a man, but he wouldn't do that to John unless he really asked for it.

Kirok, John discovers, is similarly well-meaning. As he approaches the team, his face creases into a broad smile. (His teeth are improbably white, straight, and complete in number.)

"Greetings, gentle strangers!" he says warmly. Even his voice is dark and full of carnal promise. "I am Kirok."

"You don't say," says Rodney, smirking at John.

"We welcome you to our humble village!"

"Well, thank you," says John. "It's a treat to be here."

And then, just like that, Kirok steps right up to Rodney and envelops him in a hug--dwarfs him in it, really--standing groin to groin with him, his huge arms winding around Rodney what seems like several times as he squeezes and hums, squeezes and hums, seemingly oblivious to Rodney's flailing, squirming, cursing.

John gets ready to break it up, and Teyla's not far behind--greater tolerance of strange new cultures notwithstanding--but before either one of them steps in, the most amazing thing happens:

Rodney stops fighting.

For a second John worries that he's been suffocated, but then Rodney's hands come up to pat Kirok's back awkwardly--then reluctantly, when the feel of the pelt registers with him. Kirok releases him then, beaming at him. For his part, Rodney just looks dazed.

"So," says John, and Kirok turns to him, grabbing him up in another huge hug.

One by one, he welcomes the team this way. One by one, he won't release them till they've made some small effort to hug him back. (Ronon's a bit chancy, but he endures. Teyla gives as good as she gets, thus escaping the hug almost as soon as it's begun.) It's not until everyone has been hugged that he gets down to business.

"Tell me," he booms, "what brings you?"

"Well, we're peaceful explorers," says John, "looking to make new friends, and maybe do a little trading on the side."

"Trade!" Kirok booms. "But we are a simple farming people. What have we that could interest a people such as yourselves?"

John pats him on the shoulder companionably. "I'm sure we'll think of something."

"Then come!" he replies. "You must join us for the feast tonight. Our hunters have only just returned from a great journey."

"Tonight we dine like kings?" Rodney asks, looking pained.

Kirok advances on Rodney, grinning widely, but Rodney--rightly supposing that he's got another hug coming--backs away, and promptly trips over Ronon, who's crouched down to retie his laces. Down Rodney goes, and Kirok laughs like it's the funniest thing he's ever seen.

For the first time since they clapped eyes on Kirok, John relaxes a little. Rodney might like them big and hairy and borderline retarded; he might even like them crazy--the crazy ones are always better in bed, after all--but you can't laugh at him like that until you've earned his friendship. And then you'll spend the rest of your life making it up to him anyway.

"I like this one!" says Kirok.

"So do we," says Ronon, straightening up to a little more than his full height.

Kirok's smile fades, just a little. "Follow me," he says. "I will lead you to the meeting place. We will discuss this trade, and then, we feast!"

Out of courtesy--or enthusiasm, more likely--Kirok quickly outpaces them, leaving them to talk amongst themselves. Smiling and waving, the villagers disperse, leaving them plenty of room to get around.

"Does something trouble you, Ronon?" Teyla asks him when Kirok is out of earshot.

"He smiles too much," says Ronon. "I don't like it."

"Maybe he's just a really, really happy guy," John suggests. "_Really_."

"Do I smell bad?" Rodney asks nobody in particular. He's got his Purell out, and smearing far more of it onto his hands than he could possibly need. "I was stuck in his personal space for about seven months, and let me tell you, that guy is _rank_."

"It's the pelt," says Ronon. "They left some of the cat's blood and muscle on it to symbolize its spirit remaining on this plane to guard Kirok against evil." John looks at him. "I've seen it before," he shrugs.

"Yeah, well, its spirit _stinks_," says Rodney. "Seriously, do I smell?"

"Like a meadow," says John, shoving him a little with his shoulder.

_Maybe it was the scene queens_, he thinks, watching Rodney brush invisible tiger dander off himself with obsessive-compulsive dedication.

He can't picture it, though: Rodney in love with some ropy clotheshorse with complicated hair and a signature dance move. (Actually he can. He just doesn't want to.) _So maybe it was the intellectuals._

This is more believable.

He can picture Rodney with a virtuoso of some kind, or a novelist, or a philosopher. Someone Rodney can argue with without it meaning anything to him personally. (Never mind what it means to the other guy.) Someone who wears corduroys and Hush Puppies and a Tilley hat. He could still be sort of handsome, this guy, and he'd have to be good in bed, but he wouldn't be someone Rodney would worry about losing, not like he would with the scene queen, who he'd accuse of infidelity _for no reason_ at least twice a week.

John is thinking about this way too much, he realizes.

"Hey," he says, nudging Rodney with his hip. "You think they'll have grog at the feast?"

 

*** *** ***

 

Everything goes really well for the team on Bedrock till the village's events coordinator presents them with their costumes for the feast.

Loincloths. Leather loincloths for all of them, Teyla included--although she gets a matching halter top sort of thing, too.

Rodney manages to contain himself till the team is ushered into a vacant mud hut.

"This isn't Candyland," Rodney says angrily, holding his assigned loincloth between his left thumb and forefinger, as far away from himself as possible. "This is Gor."

"I believe these garments to be well treated, Dr. McKay," Teyla argues, squinting at her halter top.

"Not G-O-R-E, G-O-R. It's a fictional planet where--" Rodney sighs and rakes his hair with his free hand. "Never mind. That's not important right now. What's important right now is that Fabio of the Pleistocene and his Merry Band of Roadies want me to wear this to dinner, and _I'm not doing it_."

John sympathizes, but come on. These people are using their ZPMs as lawn ornaments. "McKay."

"No. No, no, and also? No. Absolutely not. I did not sign on to this expedition so I could _shake my moneymaker_ for the sleazy entertainment of a bunch of prehistoric space perverts."

"Nobody's asking you to _shake_ your moneymaker, McKay. They just want you to show it off a little. It's no more than anybody else is doing, right?"

(Nobody is _naked_ in Bedrock, but John's seen a number of flashed breasts and asses, not to mention glimpses of genitalia. The Bedrockians have invented hugging, but underwear is still a ways off, apparently.)

"That's easy for _you_ to say, Colonel Six-Pack," Rodney snaps. "When some of us wake up naked on pool tables in road houses, finding the men's room isn't our primary concern."

"Hey, nature called," says John.

"Yes, I'm sure nature calls you all the time," Rodney says disgustedly, looking John up and down. "Nature has you on speed-dial."

"Don't act like you're so superior, Rodney. I know all about you and the reindeer."

"Zelenka!" he hisses. "When I get my hands on that weaselly, bigmouthed little Czech _bastard_\--"

It is of course at this moment that Kirok steps into the hut that's been assigned to them. And finally, finally, John witnesses someone being intrigued by Rodney firsthand, but it's the wrong time and place; Rodney has other things on his mind right now.

"Is something troubling you, Rodnok?" Kirok asks him. (This is not an oddity of language. Rodney introduced himself this way, and nothing John has said to the contrary can dissuade Kirok from sticking to it.)

"Yes," he says, waving the loincloth at their host. "This? Is not happening for me."

Kirok frowns. "I do not understand."

"I'll explain it to you," says Rodney. He wrinkles his nose when Kirok steps closer. "Outside. For... privacy."

"Nice day for a walk," says Ronon, following them out after a beat.

John looks at Teyla. Teyla raises a brow at John.

"So, what do you think, huh?" John asks her. "Is it worth getting into these getups, or are we gonna be running for our lives in a couple minutes?"

"I do not believe that Kirok intends us any harm," says Teyla. "And he seems to find Dr. McKay's behavior..."

"Hilarious?"

"I would have said charming." She smiles. "It would appear that Kirok 'gets' him."

"Yes it would," says John. "But I'm thinking he maybe wants to _get_ Rodney, too. You know what I'm saying?"

"No," she says sadly.

"That's okay," says John, unfastening his pants. "Alley oop."

 

*** *** ***

 

Truth be told, John isn't all that excited about the loincloth situation himself. He's not a prude--he's _not_\--but he doesn't feel all that great about wandering around outside among hundreds of strangers with only the wind to protect his modesty.

The loincloth only covers his ass, cock and balls when he stands absolutely still, or walks so stiffly that nobody can have any doubt what his problem is--which isn't funny to _him_, but tickles the hell out of everyone else, apparently.

As he settles himself carefully by the fire that's been assigned to the team, too conscious of his bare chest and legs, he remembers the outrage on Rodney's face when he accused John of being too much of a prude to face down Rodney's attackers till he's fully dressed.

And then he prays to Jesus that the Bedrockians don't turn violent over dinner, because that outrage would be nothing compared to the legend Rodney would build if John were forced to defend him in a loincloth.

("I could totally see his dick, and he didn't even care!")

John would defend Rodney naked if he had to. He would. He just wouldn't do it if he _didn't_ have to, and really, how likely is it that anybody could breach Atlantis's defenses and slaughter Rodney in the one minute it takes John to get dressed? Even if he did run out of his room in the buff, he'd never find Rodney in time, with those kinds of restrictions.

His only consolation is not much consolation at all: Rodney has to wear the stupid loincloth, too.

Sure, John will have the satisfaction of listening to Rodney bitch about it all night, thus confirming his status as a prude; no matter what he wants to prove to John, there's no way in hell he'll be able to pretend that his mostly-nudity isn't bothering him. He'll rupture his spleen if he even tries.

But John will also be forced to relive that moment in the control room when he was made uncomfortably aware of Rodney as a sexual human being--and fuck you, Heightmeyer, for putting that phrase in John's head--only now, it'll be that much worse. Rodney will be shirtless as well as pantsless, and there will be nothing--_nothing_ holding his dick in place.

"Is everything all right, John?" Teyla asks him, touching his wrist lightly.

"Fine, fine." John takes a huge swig of what he's been calling Barney Rubble Pale Ale and smiles warmly. "Just fine."

There are small campfires like theirs dotted here and there all around the Stargate, and a bonfire on its base, where the cooking's done. John sees countless Bedrockians here, and not a one of them looks like he means the team any harm, but Rodney, Ronon and Kirok are nowhere to be seen. He knows they're not dead--Rodney's been radioing in regularly, and he sounds irritated, if anything--but he'd feel a hell of a lot better if they were here.

_Maybe he likes muscle queens,_ John thinks, and the thought of Rodney with Kirok _and_ Ronon makes him take a bigger sip of his ale than he maybe should till he's had something to eat.

Ronon's not into Rodney, though. He's into Teyla, if anyone. (He'll be into her even more than usual when he sees her in her _One Million Years B.C._ outfit. Her legs are sensational.)

"I am sure Ronon and Dr. McKay will rejoin us soon," says Teyla.

"Me too," says John, a little too stoutly. "Any minute now."

He picks indifferently at the platter that's been set before him, a little like a Flintstones Happy Meal: massive racks of ribs, massive drumsticks, massive wings, a piece of bread as big as the platter, and one potato. John can't begin to guess what any of the meat looked like when it was still moving, but he's glad they didn't run into it before they got to town.

The ale is less ambiguous, although strangely, their tankards are refilled in secret in much the same way as John's teacup's been refilled at the nicer sushi restaurants he's tried. It just is, cool, dark and potent, and it's very, very good. John's almost prepared to forego the ZPM if he can bring this ale back to the City.

"Gentle friends!"

John and Teyla look over their shoulders to see Kirok, Rodney and Ronon headed their way.

Kirok and Ronon are as half-dressed as everybody else at the feast--if more disturbingly attractive--but Rodney, Rodney...

Rodney is wearing the hated loincloth over his boxer shorts.

He's also wearing his t-shirt and his boots. He looks ridiculous, of course, but not as ridiculous as John feels, and John hates him, hates him like he's never hated anyone in his entire life. He doesn't even care what Rodney had to do for/to Kirok to make this happen.

"Rodnok and I have reached an agreement about his attire, and now, we feast! Come, Rodnok, Ronon, join your friends by the fire. Enjoy the bounty of our efforts! Enjoy!" Kirok bellows with laughter, then flits away to make the rounds of his people.

Ronon mutters something foul under his breath, snatches up a drumstick as big as his thigh, and tears off a huge chunk of meat with his teeth. Rodney settles down on the bedroll next to John and smiles at him.

It is a very smug smile, and yet, when he spots John glaring at him, he says "What?"

"You're a _prude_," John taunts him. "You're a prissy, puritanical, prudish little _freak_."

"Well, yes," he says, as if this is self-evident. "I never said I wasn't. I merely pointed out that you are, too."

John scowls at him. This isn't how this conversation was supposed to go. "Hey," he challenges, "who's wearing his t-shirt?"

"The guy who wasn't dumb enough to do as he was told without asking any questions," says Rodney, with a pitying glance down at John's mostly-nudity. "Don't tell me you're not dying to go sneak some more clothes on."

"I'm not," he lies.

"Well, if that's the case, then would you mind straightening out your legs? Nobody wants to see your Little Sizzler while they're trying to eat."

John flushes and does as Rodney asked, but he can't resist saying "I don't know about _little_, McKay."

Rodney rolls his eyes. "Oh, yes, wonderful, thank you. First the loincloth, now the display of machismo. Tell me, Sheppard, how many of these women will you be impregnating tonight?"

John sips his ale and smiles meanly. "Now that everything's settled with these nice folks and we have some time to relax, why don't you tell us about the reindeer?"

Rodney narrows his eyes. "Why don't _you_ tell us?" John sighs and looks away. "Ha!" Rodney crows. "He _didn't_ tell you! I should've known. He's been sitting on that story for years, and he's not a whiny, vindictive nitwit like Torgerson."

"I too would like to hear of the reindeer, Dr. McKay," says Teyla.

Ronon sort of grunts, which is good enough for John.

"Come on," John coaxes when Rodney dips his bread in his gravy and takes a big bite. "I showed you mine."

"You showed me your _penis_," says Rodney, chewing. "Which you also showed to about fifty other people, incidentally. You're asking me to show you my _soul_." John wiggles his hips dangerously. "Okay, okay!" Rodney says quickly.

"Okay," says John, sipping his ale.

Rodney sips his own ale and scowls at his friends, one by one. "Look, it's not my fault," he says. "The bathrooms in my lab in Siberia were disgusting. _Britney Spears_ wouldn't use them. So I peed outside a lot of the time, at considerable risk to my anatomy, and sometimes the reindeer just... showed up."

"To watch you pee," John says doubtfully.

"Not to _watch_..."

"Eeuw!"

"It's a different culture, Sheppard," Rodney snaps. "Show a little sensitivity."

"It's a _reindeer_ culture. Why should I give a rat's ass?"

"You should care about anything I _tell_ you to care about."

John gapes at him. "How can knowing anything about pee-licking reindeer possibly help me in any way, shape or form?"

"You thought _math_ wouldn't help you, and look at you now," says Rodney, with a sweeping gesture that manages to encompass the fire, John's loincloth, his ale, his plate of Flintstones meats... and Rodney himself, weirdly.

"I kind of see your point," John concedes, "but somehow I doubt I'll be including that story in my speech for _Time's_ Man of the Year issue."

"You might if they picked you, but they won't. What have you got going for you, big hair and a leather skirt? You're not Man of the Year, Sheppard, you're Miss Texas."

"Just--drink your grog."

"Dr. McKay," Teyla says politely. "I would like to know more about these reindeer."

Rodney is horrified. "Are you kidding me?"

"I have learned that your reindeer draw a sleigh full of toys driven by the man called Santa Claus. As he is so important to your people, I assumed they were better cared-for than this."

"Since when does it rain in Siberia, anyway?" Ronon asks.

_Now_ Rodney drinks his grog.

 

*** *** ***

 

A few hours later, it's just John and Rodney by the fire, lying flat on their backs on the bedroll, shoulder to shoulder. (Teyla and Ronon pleaded fatigue and retired to the mud hut at what seemed to John a scandalously early hour of the night. He told himself that Ronon wanted a rematch over a bitter game of Uno, but...)

The feast's not bad, but the ale is better, and neither John nor Rodney is feeling any pain. They'd be fucked sideways if the Bedrockians turned on them now, but it wouldn't hurt much.

"So anyways," Rodney says dimly, "that's when I decided to drop out of school and become a traveling laborer."

"What, like a hobo?" says John. He can picture Rodney doing any number of appalling things, but somehow, cooking beanie-weenies in the can over an open fire isn't one of them.

"_No_ not a hobo, asshole, I was not a _hobo_. I was _noble_." He snickers a little. "For three days."

"What happened?"

A moody silence follows this question, so long that John thinks maybe Rodney fell asleep, but then Rodney says, "You know those commercials for McDonald's? Ninety-nine cent cheeseburgers? They show some college kid rummaging under his couch cushions and cashing in his empties and dining like a king?"

"Yeah..."

"I had eleven cents on Ninety-Nine Cent Cheeseburger Day. _Eleven cents_, Sheppard."

He says this like it was the greatest disappointment of his entire life. John is tempted to say something comforting. If he'd known Rodney then, he'd _totally_ have given him the eighty-eight cents he needed. But... something about Rodney's sad story is bothering him.

"Are you seriously telling me that you became the world's foremost expert in wormhole physics because you got shafted on Ninety-Nine Cent Cheeseburger Day?"

"Oh, please. What would've cut it with you? I did it to impress a girl?"

John smirks. "The only girl I ever met who thinks theoretical physics is hot is Sam Carter."

Rodney sighs remorsefully. "If Sam thought it was hot, she'd be dating _me_, not whichever brain-dead pretty-boy she's got under her thumb this week."

"Aw, don't take it so hard," says John, elbowing him in the side. "You can have your own brain-dead pretty-boy anytime you say."

"Are you making a pass at me?"

"Fuck you, McKay," John snickers. "I was talking about Kirok."

"Oh my _god_," Rodney moans. "You wouldn't believe how long it took him to _personally inspect my strange outworlder garment_. I have a handprint bruise on my _ass_ cheek, Sheppard."

"Don't you like him?" John asks innocently.

Rodney sits up and takes a big sip of his ale. "I'm not saying I've never ventured onto the other side of Sexual Orientation Avenue, but I'll burn in Hell before I'll cross that street for Captain Caveman. If I wanted to be dragged around by my hair, I'd get plugs."

John watches the line of Rodney's back as he raises his mug to his mouth and sips again. He watches the play of firelight along the top of his friend's head, the way it catches in his hair, creating a fine, bright halo that's as close to holiness as Rodney will ever, ever get. Sitting up like that, his boxers ride up his thighs a bit, exposing paler, softer flesh: a promise, and a threat.

And finally, finally, he asks the question that's been on his mind since that day in the control room: "What if I _were_ making a pass at you?"

Rodney turns sharply--more sharply than John expected, with the amount of ale they've had. The furrow between his eyebrows is as deep as John has ever seen it, his mouth as tight, as crooked. John is drunk and sprawled on his back before a roaring fire, naked but for a loincloth so tiny as to be rendered useless if he stretches his arms out above his head, and Rodney takes the sight of him in, slowly, before looking him in the face again.

And then he smiles, and shakes his head.

"You are so _drunk_."

"So are you," John points out.

"Yes, well, even drunk, I'm about a hundred times smarter than you are sober." He sets down his tankard, struggles to his feet, and holds out his hand. "Come on," he says to John. "Our yurt awaits."

John squirms up onto his knees and let Rodney do the rest of the work, which he does--carefully avoiding looking at any part of John that lies below the neck. John stumbles, when he's on his feet, and Rodney shores him up, settling his hands on John's waist. His hands are huge and hot on John's bare skin, and he pulls them away almost immediately, his wide eyes an apology that John doesn't want to hear.

Instead he takes Rodney's wrists in his hands and tugs gently till his arms are around John's waist. Then he wraps his own arms around Rodney's back and pulls him close. He's half-hard, and John's all the way there, just from this. He shimmies his hips a little and Rodney firms up a little more.

"Uh, Sheppard..." he says quietly, so quietly, a whisper against John's skin.

John hooks his chin over Rodney's shoulder and closes his eyes. Rodney's bulk is warm and reassuring, and he smells like soap and campfire smoke. "You didn't answer my question."

Rodney snorts. "You won't remember you asked it, tomorrow."

"Rodney..." John complains, and for a moment there isn't a sound except for the crackling of the fire, but then Rodney says,

"I can't say I haven't thought about it, once or twice."

"And..?"

"The truth of the matter is, you're more trouble than you're worth." He pulls back a little so he can see John's face, stroke his cheek with the back of his hand. "But more and more these days I find that... I _like_ trouble."

John grins and leans in for a kiss, but before he connects, Rodney shoves himself out of John's grasp and scowls at him.

"Don't try to kiss me while you're _drunk_, Colonel," he says, as if this is the kind of thing that causes international incidents. "It's rude, and stereotypical, and just--just crass."

"It's _crass_?"

"It's _unbelievably_ crass."

"I'm having a little trouble wrapping my head around this, McKay." John rakes his hair with both hands. "We're alone, we're drunk, we're interested--I'm _offering_ myself to you, here--"

"Oh, and what?" Rodney demands, looking outraged. "Now I should drop to my knees and worship you appropriately?"

"Well, why _not_, is all I'm saying." He tries to look appealing and harmless, tries to look sexy and charming, irresistible.

But this is Rodney he's talking to, and Rodney's already made his mind up to resist.

"Pardon me if I don't feel like lowering our friendship to the level of every anonymous back-alley _fuck_ I've ever had," he says poisonously. "You know what?" He tilts his chin up and glares at John, who braces himself for whatever's coming. "I take it back."

John frowns. "You take _what_ back?"

"All of it. My attraction to you, both physical and mental, my indulgence of your drunken bonhomie, my willingness to be in close proximity to you despite the fact that you stink of beer and animal fat--_all of it_!"

John rolls his eyes. "You can't just _revoke_ a hard-on, McKay."

"_Watch me_." Rodney turns on his heel and stomps off toward their hut. "You'd better not fall asleep out here, Colonel," he calls over his shoulder as he goes. "With the way you're behaving, you'll be married to a yak by morning."

 

*** *** ***

 

John flings himself down onto his usual chair in Heightmeyer's office and just looks at her.

"Good morning, John." She gives him her best tell-me-everything smile. "How are you feeling today?"

John considers his words carefully.

Rodney's barely said a word to him since that bad night on Bedrock. He avoids John when he can, and when he can't, he tolerates John with painful civility till someone calls one or the other of them away to see to some life-or-death crisis.

It's maddening. John expected trouble if he tried anything with Rodney, but he thought it'd come _after_ the honeymoon phase, not before.

His reservations have deserted him; that's the worst part, really. He still thinks Rodney would be a brutal, fulltime job that would drop him unceremoniously into an early grave, but now, he thinks Rodney might be worth it. Now he thinks _Nothing ventured, nothing gained._

And now, he can't figure out how to make Rodney stop looking at him like he just said _The Crawling Eye_ could really happen.

"Well," he says thoughtfully, "I had the pear dream again."

 

*** *** ***

 

"Bates, this is Sheppard."

"Yes sir."

"Anything I should know about?"

"Not at the moment, sir."

"Well." John looks down at his bare legs and grimaces. "Keep me posted, Sergeant."

"Yes sir."

John will never, ever be satisfied, in his entire life. This is what he's learned today. He worked thirty-seven eighteen-hour days in a row, the closest thing to a break a trip offworld to get polluted with the Cro-Magnons or whatever the hell they were.

These were not necessarily exciting, death-defying, fun-filled days. Once he spent an afternoon counting packets of Jell-O. He prayed for a day off then, or a swift and painless death--whichever came first.

Now that he finally has his break, it's been forced on him by well-meaning sadists with command authority. And now he doesn't have the first fucking idea what to do with himself.

Nothing feels right, that's the problem. It doesn't feel wrong in the alien possession/alternate reality/this-is-all-a-dream sense. It just isn't working. Reading; practicing his golf swing; napping; trying to figure out how the hell to tune his guitar; watching movies; listening to music...

None of it's what he wants, but he doesn't know what he wants. It's driving him batshit.

In a drowsy, stupid sort of moment, he took off his pants. He wanted to see the allure.

There is no allure. From the moment they hit the floor he's been waiting for someone to start screaming. This, he realizes, may be why he's always insisted on pants in the first place, albeit in a different sort of way.

"Elizabeth, this is Sheppard."

"Is something wrong, John?"

"No, no. You?"

"I'm... fine..." she says. "Everything's just... fine." If they were on Earth she'd be looking for Beckett's number on her Blackberry.

"Great. Glad to hear it. You take care, now."

"You too."

It doesn't make any sense. He's been _naked_ in his room a million times, showering, jacking off, even having sex with another person, once or twice. He sleeps in less than this, stripping off his t-shirt before he goes to bed. But somehow, some way, sitting around with no pants on for no reason makes him twitch.

"Zelenka, this is Sheppard."

"_Leave me alone_."

"Understood."

All of a sudden, he can't take it anymore. He tugs his pants back on with a sigh of relief and heads out of his quarters for a run.

He pushes himself hard, competes with himself, ignores the little aches and pains he's accumulated during this past stretch of work. He sweats, sweats, sweats, breathing hard, muscles singing, and gradually, gradually, his thoughts go quiet and there's nothing to him but his pulse and his footfalls, pounding in time.

He still feels that serenity when he returns to his quarters, when he showers, when he towels himself off.

And then, it vanishes in the instant it takes him to walk out of the bathroom and register the sight of Rodney standing in the middle of the room, gripping a flat bottle of hooch in his hand like he's getting ready to brain John with it.

In the absence of anything useful to say, John keeps toweling his hair.

Rodney scowls at the towel slung low around John's hips and snaps, "Where are your shot glasses?"

"Under my wet bar," says John. "Next to the cocktail onions. What the hell are you doing?"

"The question is what are _we_ doing&gt;?" he says absently as he pokes through John's cupboards. "_We_ are getting liquored up."

Finally he unearths a pair of Bailey's tumblers that John received free with purchase. Wearing a deeply dubious expression, Rodney peers inside them, checking for dust or dead insects.

"They're clean," John promises him.

"To _you_."

John doesn't point out that Rodney's the one who eats potato chips he's found under his couch cushions three years after he's lost them. John checks the PACKAGED ON date, and worries if he goes over by a single day.

Rodney cracks open his bottle of booze and fills both glasses.

"What's the occasion?" John asks, but he isn't sure that he really wants to know.

He doesn't recognize the bottle Rodney's brought--Fireball, it's called, although it's the color of dark honey--and it's got a label that looks a bit like the labels on bottles of crackpot medicine sold by hucksters in olden times. _Guaranteed to cure female complaints_ or some such.

This bottle may actually be over 100 years old. Or else it may be Canadian. Either way, John's not that hot to drink it out of a tumbler after Rodney's asked him for shot glasses.

"Never mind that." Rodney waves the bottle at him. "Go put your pants on before you spontaneously combust from maidenly shame."

"You're a real mystery, McKay," he says from the privacy of his bathroom.

"Thank you. Most people find me terribly predictable."

"Drunk and pantsless in the middle of the day..."

"I've always thought that the Western convention of avoiding alcohol till the evening was arbitrary and puritanical, not to mention impractical. How many times has something happened to you at eleven-thirty in the morning that you couldn't handle sober?"

Dressed in briefs, now, John considers his pants, then decides against them. Rodney only knows _almost_ everything. Instead he yanks a black t-shirt over his head and leaves it at that. "You get drunk at eleven-thirty in the morning?"

"I get drunk when the situation calls for it. Why should I have to suffer any more than I already have?" When John returns to the main room, Rodney smirks at his bare legs and shoves one of the glasses at him. "Get that down you."

"All at once?" he says uncertainly.

Rodney rolls his eyes. "Just chug it, princess. You'll be fine."

John chugs it. It tastes like cinnamon hearts and it burns going down, like cheap whiskey, which he guesses it is. Rodney chugs it, too, but gratifyingly, he doesn't look too happy about it.

"_God_, that's vile," he says. "Give me your glass and I'll pour you another."

John hands it over. "So, Rodney. Is this the part before the part where you knock me unconscious and throw me in the ocean?"

"Please," Rodney scoffs. "If I wanted you dead you wouldn't have time to ask me about it."

This is probably true. Not to say that Rodney is the kind of person who goes around wanting people dead, much--not sincerely, anyway--but if he did, he'd get it done with the same single-minded determination with which he does everything else. It would be efficient, but maybe not so quick. That's the thing with the brainy types: they can't just kill you and get it over with. They have to make a whole big production out of it.

Sadly, whatever sinister veneer he may have built up over the last ten seconds or so is destroyed completely when he tries to chug his second glass of Fireball and chokes on it. He stops short of spewing it all over John's floor, but it's a near thing.

"Why don't we have a seat?" John suggests, waving at the bed.

Rodney tops up their drinks with more Fireball before he joins him.

"Okay," John says when they're settled on the edge of the bed. "What's all the hubbub? Was there a meltdown you forgot to tell me about?"

He's joking, to begin with, but then, not so much. At first he chalked Rodney's tension up to the bad weeks they've had since they got back from Bedrock, but they're here, they're mostly dressed and they're getting girl drink drunk, and Rodney's still twanging like he's counting down the minutes to his imminent execution.

Rodney looks John askance, swallows hard, and drains his glass. Then he hops off the bed to fill it again.

"Rodney."

Rodney scowls at him. "What, am I interrupting your busy schedule of prank calling our personnel? Give me a minute, all right?" He pours his drink as if one wrong move could destroy the City. Then he parks himself in front of John, glowering. "You only made a pass at me because you were drunk."

Oh. The Talk. Thank _god_.

"Yeah," John winces. "I'm sorry about that."

"Mm. But here's the thing: I only responded because _I_ was drunk."

John's eyebrows shoot up. "You didn't respond, McKay. You bagged me and left me to be molested by a yak."

"But first I responded," he says irritably. "Look, you can't possibly be this stupid. Not and still be walking around with all your limbs."

John looks at Rodney--_really_ looks. And he sees nothing out of the ordinary: wide, flashing eyes, twisted mouth, obstinate chin. But then he thinks about the glass Rodney's gripping so tightly, and the glass John's got on his bedside table. He thinks about the Fireball that neither of them likes, apparently, and knows, with sudden, shining clarity, that Rodney traded someone for it. For _this_, which is _not_ The Talk. This...

"Oh!" he says brightly.

"You're too late," Rodney announces. "The mood is shot."

"That's okay." John sips his Fireball and tries not to grimace. "The way you've been acting these past few weeks, I kinda lost the mood myself."

Rodney is outraged. "Me? You've been skulking around the City like some evil, primordial fog, waiting for someone to get confused enough to drift near you so you can eat their brains and damn their soul to eternal hellfire. Elizabeth didn't give you the day off for _your_ sake, Peppermint Crabby."

"You're a fine one to talk about crabby, McKay. And I wouldn't have been skulking around the City if you hadn't told me where to go on Bedrock."

"I wouldn't have told you where to go if you hadn't made a pass at me while you were bombed out of your mind on distilled dinosaur dung!"

"I wouldn't have _asked_ you where to go otherwise!"

After they've glared at one another in a tense silence for a moment, Rodney sighs.

"Okay, so. Apparently we're going to keep having the exact same conversation every single day till we kill ourselves to escape the soul-sucking tedium of it all. I'll try this again. We're alone, we're drunk, we're interested, and I'm offering myself to you--"

John snatches the glass from Rodney's hand, slams it down on the bedside table, grabs Rodney's belt, and yanks on it, hard, pulling him down on top of John on the bed.

Unfortunately, he didn't account for the fact that he's sitting on the edge of the mattress and Rodney was standing up; his face is squashed against Rodney's belly, and Rodney's head is... somewhere above his own.

"For the record," John mumbles into Rodney's shirt, "I'm not really drunk right now."

"That's just as well," says Rodney. "I don't mean to judge you at this tenuous stage of our new relationship, but you strike me as the sort of man who has, shall we say, _performance problems_ when he's had too much to drink."

John grabs Rodney's hips, rolls him onto his back, and shimmies up to cover him, propping himself up on his elbows, rubbing his erection against Rodney's own. Rodney's face is flushed, his eyes dark, his mouth wet and parted, his breath coming fast. He's John's for the taking, and John hasn't even kissed him yet.

"You want me to perform for you, McKay?" he says softly.

Rodney closes his eyes. "I can think of about a hundred different things that you might mean by that, and nearly every one of them is completely appalling."

Grinning, John licks Rodney's mouth open and lets himself inside, stroking Rodney's tongue with his own, curling, sucking. Rodney tastes like cinnamon hearts and alcohol, and he opens up to John just like that, warm and sweet, his legs parting to cradle John firmly between his thighs, one hand curling into John's hair, the other over his ass. His breath is a shuddering moan as he returns John's kiss and grinds up against him.

Before Rodney can find a rhythm, John breaks the kiss and leans up again.

"Wait... what..?" Rodney says thickly.

"Why'd you change your mind?"

Rodney blinks at him. "Why'd you change yours?"

"I decided that... you're worth the trouble."

"Of course I am. I could've told you that. What did you think, there'd be no upside?"

"Hey, I'm trying to be nice to you, here, McKay."

"If you _really_ wanted to be nice to me, you wouldn't have stopped to talk." John smiles. "Honestly, don't you think we have enough time to talk out there? Who died and made you Oprah?"

John kisses him again, and this time, Rodney isn't sweet at all. His thighs grip John's hips, his hand is tight in John's hair, and he takes John's mouth with his own as if he can make John forget that he hasn't answered John's question if his kisses are just pushy enough, hot enough.

He isn't that far wrong, really. When Rodney squeezes John's ass and pulls him closer, John doesn't give a damn why Rodney had a change of heart. He doesn't give a damn about _anything_ except getting Rodney's clothes off.

They struggle and squirm out of their clothes between kisses, stopping here and there to kiss somewhere else, or grope, or stroke. Finally John's got Rodney naked, and he takes a good long look at the goods.

Rodney is pale, of course, a bit soft around the middle, but thickly muscled. John expected his chest to be as hairy as his arms and legs, but it's not; there's just a long, narrow patch of hair between his nipples, pointing up and pointing down, as obvious a sign as you can hope to find. His cock is as long and thick as John remembers from that day in the control room; dark, and uncut. His balls aren't as big as John imagined. They fit just nicely in the palm of John's hand.

"Bids starting at fifty dollars a pound," Rodney says acidly. "Are you having a seizure or something?"

John licks his lips. "I'm getting ready to worship you appropriately."

"...Oh. Okay."

Rodney's next breath is a hiss as John takes his cock in his mouth, jacking the shaft with the hand that isn't holding Rodney down, stroking the slit with the flat of his tongue. It only takes a moment to get used to the feel of his mouth stretching around Rodney's cock, the feel of Rodney twitching and jerking inside him, working his mouth, his throat. Then he starts sucking while he works it, humming a little, happily, the way Rodney does.

It may be that Rodney is trying to keep still, trying to protect John, but if so, he's extraordinarily bad at it. He wriggles and writhes, arching his back, arching his neck, and his hands clench in John's hair that much more often than he remembers himself and clutches the sheets instead.

He hasn't said a word since John got started. Every sound that comes out of his mouth now is a moan, or a gasp, and for that, John likes him more right now than he ever, ever has.

He sucks Rodney harder, jacks him faster, slides his other hand down to stroke him firmly behind his balls. Just as he's really relaxing into it, Rodney comes, hard and silent, his back bowed, his eyes squeezed shut, his mouth open. It's not till the first rush of orgasm has passed that he groans loudly, gradually quieting down to soft little yelps as his hips keep moving, fucking John's mouth languidly.

Then he stops, everything, and collapses.

John rests his head on Rodney's thigh and closes his eyes. He can't remember the last time he felt this contentment, this certainty of being in the right place and time. This is what he's wanted: Rodney, beneath him. Nothing more than that. His mouth is swollen and tingly, and it makes him smile against Rodney's skin.

Rodney paws at his head awkwardly. "Hey."

"Mm."

"_Hey_."

"Yeah, yeah. Gimme a minute."

"Oh, _I'm_ sorry," says Rodney with exaggerated sincerity, squirming out from under John. "I didn't realize that _not_ having sex with me is more satisfying than _having_ sex with me. You should've said something sooner. I could've stayed home and watched _The Golden Girls_."

"Rodney," John sighs. "Don't you want to bask in the afterglow?"

"Why, because your blowjob was so amazing that now I have to go on sabbatical while I recover? It _was_ good--fantastic, even--but you don't want to know what I had to give up for that monkey spunk that Oliphant calls alcohol, and I'm not wasting it lounging around in your bed, eating potato chips and calling you Foofie, okay?"

Anybody else would be bitching because John hasn't gotten off yet. Rodney's bitching because he wants to get off _again_. Still, it hasn't escaped John's notice that apparently Rodney expects him to do all the work.

"Okay," he says, and rolls Rodney onto his stomach.

"Mm," says Rodney, lifting his hips to accept the pillow John slides beneath them. "Mm!" he says when John parts his ass cheeks and laps at his hole. "Oh..! _Oh_!"

John works his tongue inside Rodney, thrusting, licking, sucking, till Rodney's propped himself up on his elbows for better leverage and fucking John's mouth more than he's being fucked by it. Soon enough, he has to _grip_ Rodney's ass with both hands just to keep him from shoving John off the bed. The nape of his neck and the curve of his spine glisten with sweat, and he bucks, and gasps, and curses.

"John," he rasps. "_John_."

"Mm-hm," he says, dragging his tongue over Rodney's hole.

"If this is your way of telling me that you don't have any lube," he rasps, "I'm about to be very, very upset with you."

John drags his mouth from Rodney's skin and eases him down onto the pillow. For a moment Rodney's hips keep working helplessly, restlessly.

"Forget it," he mumbles. "I'm upset with you anyway."

"I think I have some gun oil in my footlocker," says John, kissing the tiny indentation above Rodney's right ass cheek. "You want me to go get it?"

"Only if you're planning to shoot yourself," Rodney grumbles, glaring at John over his shoulder.

"You came here to get me into bed," John points out. "You didn't think to bring lube?"

"I came here to negotiate a peaceful and mutually satisfactory settlement to our long and ultimately pointless disagreement," Rodney says stiffly. "How was I supposed to know that you're a man-whore even on your own turf?"

"You fought me every step of the way," John agrees.

Rodney looks utterly thwarted. Then he says, "Seriously, you've got _nothing_?"

Sighing the sigh of the eternally put-upon, John reaches across Rodney, yanks open the drawer on his bedside table, and digs out his bottle of Liquid Silk, setting it down atop the table with more force than is absolutely necessary.

"There is something terribly wrong about a world in which you can buy a family-size bottle of personal lubricant," Rodney says after a moment.

"_Rodney_," John says roughly, his patience at an end. Rodney's already come once; he's well on his way to coming twice. In the meantime, John's own erection has gone ignored by everyone.

No matter what anyone says about the brain being the biggest erogenous zone, no matter how Rodney sounds when he's finding god in John's mouth, or how he smells when he comes, or how he tastes when his skin is sheened with sweat, John's enjoyment of this experience thus far has been mostly platonic.

Self-denial is part of the excitement, for him; that ache--that _burn_\--left unfulfilled. But that's not all of it, not by a long shot.

"How did the cashier at Walgreens look when you asked him to help you carry that out to your car?" Rodney asks.

John smirks. "Optimistic."

Rodney twists to glower at John at the same moment that John's slicked-up fingers slide inside him, and one sort of frown turns into another sort entirely. "God," he gasps, "you're so, so..."

"Foxy?"

Rodney laughs helplessly. "You can never tell anyone that I had sex with you."

"I know," says John. "It's kind of against company policy."

"Mm. A little to the left... a little deeper..." Rodney freezes, sucks in a deep breath, says "Ohh..." in a deeper voice than John would've guessed he's got.

"Here?" he asks, deliberately grazing just past the hot spot. "Or here..?" he asks, missing it again.

"You'll pay for this," Rodney mumbles into John's mattress.

John stretches out on top of him now, kisses the nape of his neck. He can't help thrusting against Rodney just a little; his cock is nestled in the crack of Rodney's ass, and Rodney rocks up against him, humming softly.

"Tell me you're ready," John rasps.

"Mm."

Rodney spreads his legs and props himself up on his elbows again, easing John up with him. When he looks over his shoulder at John this time, his eyes are dark, his mouth swollen, his expression stupid with lust. It's the hottest thing John's ever seen, but he can't say so; Rodney would spoil it with an eyeroll and a slanderous comment about John's character.

John trembles slightly as he eases his cock into Rodney's ass, slowly, so slowly. Too slowly. He feels like he's been waiting for this for months instead of a matter of minutes, holding back, looking forward. Sweat breaks out all over his body; instinct begs him to shove Rodney down and just _fuck_ him.

Oh, hang on.

That's _Rodney_.

"This isn't _water ballet_, for Christ's sake," Rodney snipes. "What's the _matter_ with you?"

John curls his hands around Rodney's, strokes his chest over Rodney's back, pulls out slowly, and pushes in fast, and hard enough to jar Rodney, to surprise him into a grunt. "Yeah," John says dimly, and Rodney gasps, "Yeah," and they come to another agreement of sorts, John riding Rodney hard, his hips snapping forward, snapping back, Rodney using his leverage on the mattress to fuck John back, just as fast, just as hard.

Their rhythm is perfect, bodies swaying and bucking, twisting, fucking, till Rodney can't hold himself up anymore and John's more than happy to hold him down, working his hips frantically, sucking and chewing on the back of Rodney's neck, his skin slipping and sliding against Rodney's own, and both of them moan and moan and moan.

"Come on," John gasps. "_Come on_."

Rodney squirms beneath him and works his hand down and in so he can Jack himself off. His cries go high and soft then, and he tenses as he comes, the muscles in his ass clenching around John's cock tightly, so tightly. John's not far behind him, his own orgasm fierce and intense, pleasure searing through his body and along his nerve endings, flattening him.

 

*** *** ***

 

"Why do you wear boxers?" John asks him later, when they're sprawled all over each other in his bed. "I always figured you for a tighty-whiteys kinda guy."

"Yes, because I live to perpetuate stereotypes," says Rodney. "This is about biology, Sheppard. It's all well and good for _you_ to have brain-damaged children; everyone's expecting that anyway. I have my legacy to consider."

"What if you don't have kids?"

Rodney shrugs. "Then boxers are just sexy."

John can't argue with that.


End file.
